Monday, June 26, 2006

The only thing you can say for sure, Casey is still leading Santorum. Rasmussen's latest poll gives Casey 52% to Santorum's 37% -- a fifteen point deficit for the incumbent junior Senator from Pennsylvania.

Since the May 31 Rasmussen poll was the first out of the box post-primary, the spread between the candidates has ranged from the 23-points of that May Rasmussen tally to 6.3 in the last Zogby attempt. Rasmussen is the first pollster to release a second set of new results post-primary. These numbers are similar to the most recent Quinnipiac poll, which put it at 52-34 for Casey. With the recent Strategic Vision poll putting the spread at 9, for those of you keeping score, it's two for double-digit lead and two for single digits. Guess we'll look to the folks at F&M to break the tie.

Crosstabs are only available for "premium members", so we don't have that data. Here's what Rasmussen had to say:

Now trailing Democrat Bob Casey by fifteen percentage points (52% to 37%), Santorum has gained a few points since last month. Of course, gaining a few points after lagging by twenty-three points is hardly an accomplishment for an incumbent to brag about. The overall trend remains very unhappy for Santorum: he has reached a 40% level of support just once in our last eight polls of the race. Casey has topped 50% in all but one of those polls. . . .

Senator Santorum is viewed favorably by 46% of likely Pennsylvania voters, unfavorably by 48%. Casey is viewed favorably by 55%, unfavorably by 36%. Santorum is viewed "very" unfavorably by 28%, Casey by 13%.

A lopsided plurality of voters in the Keystone State would prefer to see a Democrat in the Oval Office in 2009. Voters here tend to look more favorably on the Democratic prospects we asked about than voters have in other states.

Still, the two Republican frontrunners still enjoy slightly higher favorables than the Democrat’s frontrunners. Hillary Clinton is viewed favorably by 53%, Al Gore by 57%, John McCain by 59%, Rudy Giuliani by 64%. McCain and Giuliani are viewed "very" unfavorably by many fewer respondents than Clinton and Gore are.

Numbers like these tend to make one forget just how long we have to go until November.